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Decent Sat Navs from £65. Navman for £70
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The cost of these ubiquitous, in-car, direction givers has dropped rapidly over the last year. It's now possible to get a high-end sat nav with touchscreen for well under £100, providing of course last week's Doctor Who hasn't scared you off..
The current top deals
The Big Brand: Navman N20 £69.99 delivered. Full UK Mapping.
Navman's been making Sat Navs for a while, and this one, ready to use straight out of the box, is half price at £70 from Amazon. It has all the features you've come to expect, (3.5" touchscreen, Full Postcode Search, Auto re-routing, Speed camera info) and some useful buttons which plot the nearest car parking and fuel at a press too. It also has 'Navpix' software which allows you to search destinations via pre-loaded photos of them.
The Cheapest: Navigo GPS £64.99 delivered. Full UK Mapping.
This popular Navigo unit from Ebuyer's actually gone up by £5 since last time it was featured, but now it comes pre-loaded with the most up-to-date mapping software available. It's a fair bit chunkier than the one above, but matches its feature set, also sporting a 3.5" touchscreen and full postcode search. The included software has excellent feedback, and as a bonus it'll play mp3 music and mp4 videos when loaded onto an SD card (sound through supplied headphones).
With Full European Mapping: Garmin Nuvi 250 £99.99 delivered.
Amazon's also got this well-rated Garmin-branded box with full European mapping, Pre-loaded speed camera info, a 3.5 touch-screen and an intuitive interface, designed to be easy for even the most technically challenged driver. Like the one above, it'll also play media files for when you take a break from your European jaunt.
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Alternatives.
Sat Nav on your mobile.
Some newer mobile handsets include Sat Nav as standard, though you may have to pay a subscription for the mapping software. Yet even if yours doesn't (and you've a head for tech stuff), you can buy a bluetooth mobile gps adaptor for around £30, and use free Nav4All GPS software for mapping (check compatibility). Try to get an adaptor based on a 'Sirfstar' chipset, as these are generally better regarded.
Sirf Star Bluetooth receiver and 1 year Wayfinder subscription now £24.99 delivered at Play. The cheapest well-rated receiver I could find's under £25 at Play, and comes with 1 year's mapping subscription included in the price. Compatibility is listed on the product page.
And soon, on your PSP.
Sony's about to release its Go! Explore Sat Nav pack for the PSP, which includes a GPS receiver and UMD disc full of mapping software. Price details are a touch sketchy at the moment, but if it proves to be MoneySaving it'll be included in the weekly email on release.
Although, it could be the source of much 'serious debate' between parents and kids over who gets the PSP on a long journey...
Anything else?
The price of mapping software on SD cards can vary quite widely, so if you think you'd like to upgrade your UK mapping to European check out the prices first. It may be cheaper in the long run to get one with the full maps in the first place.
PS: Thanks to any MoneySavers that may have posted these elsewhere.
im looking for a basic model but would need it to include the republic or ireland and france do any of these models allow for that or can be upgrade to include them ???
all views, comments and opinions are mine and i have the right to be wrong
The Navigo from ebuyer can be modified to run Tom Tom etc and the price fluctuates so keep an eye on it. It went as low as £49.99 before which is a steal!
This is a headset you plug into your sony mobile that also doubles as a GPS receiver. It's really made for joggers, as it comes with software for tracking your runs (great alternative to a Garmin forrunner) but if you've got the Google maps application installed, you can get full navigation/route planning (requires good data package on your mobile as maps are pulled from the net)
NOTE: Not computable with K850i... very annoyed about that personally
Can someone pls advise what are ongoing costs of these devices? ie do you have to pay annually for speed camera updates, map updates, etc...?
I've seen some that offer "free for life" updates, which implies that there is a cost implication....
Ongoing costs depend on what you want really. If you want to always be bang up to date then it costs. If you don't mind a 2 year old map then it's cheaper.
IMHO the best speed camera database is available here:
Map updates are released periodically by the respective companies. There only are two mapping companies that supply all the sat nav market. These are TeleAtlas (who supply TomTom) and Navteq (who supply Garmin).
I have a Garmin Nuvi and the maps are released once a year. The latest one costs £60 (this is for the whole of Europe map). You don't have to update annually and I am told you can skip a version. i.e. the latest version is 2008 and assuming there is a 2009, 2010 etc I could skip straight to 2010 when that comes out.
As the actual devices are so cheap now it might be viable to EBay your old sat nav before the new maps come out and then re-buy it with the new maps. Would depend on the costs really. Whatever happens the maps are not really right up to date anyway. The map making companies have to add new roads and correct the mistakes, then they sell the maps to the sat nav companies. The sat nav companies spend time encoding them to their own format and then finally they are released. So the likelihood is that 2008 maps probably really means, Q1 2007 maps! :-)
This is a headset you plug into your sony mobile that also doubles as a GPS receiver. It's really made for joggers, as it comes with software for tracking your runs (great alternative to a Garmin forrunner) but if you've got the Google maps application installed, you can get full navigation/route planning (requires good data package on your mobile as maps are pulled from the net)
NOTE: Not computable with K850i... very annoyed about that personally
Is this a whole GPS package or is it just a GPS receiver(like a bluetooth one) that you still need software for??
I've got the Navman N20 (£69.99) and that comes with UK maps pre-installed. However, it also comes with two discs of European maps as well, all you need is a 2gb SD card to install them on and off you go.
I'll be in the market for a Euro Sat Nav within the next couple of weeks (driving to south of france in summer).
Quite like the look of the Garmin Nuvi 250 Widescreen -£30 more than the standard mentioned above. Cheapest place by a mile is Amazon but just wondering why?
I'll be in the market for a Euro Sat Nav within the next couple of weeks (driving to south of france in summer).
Quite like the look of the Garmin Nuvi 250 Widescreen -£30 more than the standard mentioned above. Cheapest place by a mile is Amazon but just wondering why?
Are they old models with old maps?
thanks
The maps are 'new'(the latest Europe 2008) but there are new Garmin models out called the 255 and 255w. There are a few new features in the software like text to speech and a next turn arrow in the display(something that has been sadly lacking in Garmin upto now). Can also use the GTM25 traffic receiver.
'Its digital elevation maps show you shaded contours at higher zoom levels, giving you a big picture of the surrounding terrain'.
Ongoing costs depend on what you want really. If you want to always be bang up to date then it costs. If you don't mind a 2 year old map then it's cheaper.
IMHO the best speed camera database is available here:
Map updates are released periodically by the respective companies. There only are two mapping companies that supply all the sat nav market. These are TeleAtlas (who supply TomTom) and Navteq (who supply Garmin).
I have a Garmin Nuvi and the maps are released once a year. The latest one costs £60 (this is for the whole of Europe map). You don't have to update annually and I am told you can skip a version. i.e. the latest version is 2008 and assuming there is a 2009, 2010 etc I could skip straight to 2010 when that comes out.
As the actual devices are so cheap now it might be viable to EBay your old sat nav before the new maps come out and then re-buy it with the new maps. Would depend on the costs really. Whatever happens the maps are not really right up to date anyway. The map making companies have to add new roads and correct the mistakes, then they sell the maps to the sat nav companies. The sat nav companies spend time encoding them to their own format and then finally they are released. So the likelihood is that 2008 maps probably really means, Q1 2007 maps! :-)
Oh and don't bother paying extra for traffic information on your sat nav, it works very poorly in this country at the moment.
thanks Scotty. I'm sure I'm not going to worry too much about an out-of-date map - my current "satnav" involves reaching behind my seat for a bent and crumpled 2005 map and getting the wife to try to work out where we are, so I think anything will be an improvement on that (assuming, unlike the wife, they all have a volume control... )!
Pls be nice to all MoneySavers. There's no such thing as a stupid question, and even if you disagree courtesy helps. Take care over copyright. Use excerpts and links rather than copying long text. This site asserts copyright on all comments posted on the board.
Pls be nice to all MoneySavers. There's no such thing as a stupid question, and even if you disagree courtesy helps.
Decent Sat Navs from £65. Navman for £70
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